Cognitive Science Master’s on Psychology Undergrad => Loves finding connections between tech and humans. Writes in English or Turkish.

Dec 6, 2016

World Internet Usage Statistics

It is a taken-for-granted belief that majority of populations use internet, have computers or even smart phones. As all common sense beliefs are shaky, this is another one that is absurdly wrong. It is not just a simple ignorance of facts, it is West-supremacy dominating all aspects of our lives. When I looked at Internet Usage Statistics from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm , I have realised that how some parts of the world is so remote from the content we share and reach through the web.

It is easy to notice from penetration rates that how much of a population are using the internet. In North America, it is 89% which means almost 9 people out of 10 is using the internet. This goes to low as 28.7% in Africa which is quite low. The table means that what we think is sharing globally is actually not reflecting the truth.

When you click on this link: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats1.htm you’ll see more shocking numbers. It is a table of countries in Africa and their statistics on internet usage. There is a huge variation between African countries that Morocco has 60% penetration rate while Eritrea has only 1%, yes only 1%. This statistics is really shocking that people in some countries are shockingly remote from whatever knowledge, art, fun we share through the internet.

Of course, freedom on the internet is quite important but more important thing still is about material and infrastructure. We will keep lacking the global harmony although we have freedom on the internet as the reachability of internet is remaining to be quite unequal across the world.

At least, we can stop saying the world is online. It is still analog. Life pieces we overshare here will not bring the online any pride. One moral I draw from these stats is that we need to emphasis more what is missing on the internet than adding more of what is already here.